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So the train ride in this morning was so close to perfect, but alas it ended up a complete joke.

It seems the snow has once again caused havoc with the service from Brighton to London Bridge. DSo much so that the 07:33 crawled into London Bridge at a little before 10am, when it should have been 08:43.

Knowing the pain of the return leg during rush hour I decided that enough was enough and to turn around and head home, knowing that I could log on from the warmth of my living room. Again though, the rail networks would play their hand. There were no trains leaving London Bridge from any platform.

So, stuck at a cold station, I had to wait for the next rain to appear which as luck would have it, was only about half an hour away. One of th0 eonly trains to leave was a service by First Capital. Now how ironic is that!

I arrived back home at about 12:30, which means that I have spent 5 hours going too and from London. I hate to think what it will be like when the rush hour commute begins at 5pm this evening. All I can say is good luck, and I’m glad I’m not there. I’m sure there are many people suffering today.

Ever the optimist, I got on the 07:33 this morning thinking there would be hardly any delay getting to work this morning. After all, only a few weeks back we had snow and I guess that could be used as practice for the next time, eg this time.

But alas no. It’s now almost 9am and we have only just left East Croydon. I reckon I will be in work for about 10am, which means a two and a half hour journey.

As I write this I’m sitting on a Gatwick Express train heading into Victoria.

The 07:33 was delayed and then cancelled (not actually saying cancelled on the board, it just vanished!) and an emergency 07:47 service was added. Not an emergency one to London Bridge of course, oh no. In an emergency the first trains to get cancelled are those.

The excuse today was threefold. Due to the adverse weather, due to rolling stock and (this is the classic), displacement of train staff!

What I really didn’t need today was to be late. Having organised meetings at 9am on a Tuesday as it was the only time slot available, I was hoping that I would arrive with plenty of time to walk the 15 minutes to work.

Why?

Why do I do this to myself? I know that the rail service is not on time at least 70% of the time. I guess I’m just a sucker for what someone tells me.

So we crawl into London Bridge at 08:51 which leave me 9 minutes to get to the office. No chance. I like the idea that they have in Japan where if a train is late by a few minutes, the rail company give the commuters a slip of paper to prove that it was the fault of the train company.

I would go one further. If that commuter has 20 of those bits of paper, they can then trade it in for something of value. After all, they took something valuable of mine – MY TIME!